I’ve already written about this before, but Hey - this was a [series](https://www.marcusoft.net/tags/#Things I say often) about things I said often. Basically, but please read the other post instead, many times I’ve been at companies that want to improve but don’t want to change. This is impossible. Improving means changing. Changing doesn’t necessary means improving though. To me this is...

Really … this is probably the word I use most often. And I’m proud of it! Why? It’s not only because I’m ignorant and forget things a lot, but to me this is where knowledge is started to be created. I’m guessing I could write an entire book on just this single word, so this post will just be a...

I have probably introduce around 80-100 teams to the use of some sort of board to visualize their work. One of the things that I often … ah, always say and also have to repeat is this:

Nobody has told us to create a board. We do this for us. This is great because that it means that we can change it how WE see fit

New year - new blog series. I was thinking about writing down some of the things that I find myself repeating often. These post will be short, and possible link to places where I’ve already said this already. I will collect these post under the label [Things I say often](https://www.marcusoft.net/tags/#Things I say often) I don’t have a list made up...

When a year has passed I often try to think back and find the one most important thing I learned. This year that was a bit tricky since I’ve learned so amazingly much. So good - and some bad.

The single piece of advice I got that stood out was about presenting. And it came from one of my oldest friends, one that I call my brother: Kalle.

This will not be an ordinary post. Just a write up of something horrible that happened to us during Christmas. It ends well, but was a horrible time in our lives.

During the Christmas, our family experienced the worst scare and troubled time yet. In Indonesia but also in our lives. It all looks like it will play out alright but many people have asked me to share the story, so I will do that here. If I find the strange I’ll write a follow-up post with some lean-learnings that this could teach us, but not now.

I’m a coach for teams and organizations. At many of my clients I don’t do anything… Or I’m not typing code maybe is a way of formulating it since I’m very much involved in what goes on (and I also want other companies to hire me).

But really I’ve had a hard time to come to grips with what I’m really doing. Many days is just listening (really just that) or maybe make sure that two people talk. Other days it might be sitting down with someone and think. Or redraw a board that we decided to do but everyone found to boring. I’ve also done training, or suggested other trainers to come by or even suggested that we’d just try something new, like mob programming.

But I’m quite often not very busy and when you look back in what is produced it’s hard to see my foot print (very few check-ins under my name for example).

So what good am I? What do I do? How could you measure the effect of having someone like me in the team, at the company?

I’ve been re-reading The Goal. For the fourth time. And I still got that buzz from it. It’s such a great book - I recommend it to anyone interested in business and becoming more effective. The Goal is the best business book I ever read. Re-reading it now, 4th time. Pivotal learnings, great story. Read it now! @GoldrattBooks The book...

Now, if there ever was a book that filled a need this is it! I cannot count the number of teams and companies that have struggled to get user stories right - this book is packed with practical, solid, experienced based advices on how to improve how you use user stories to your advantage. Throughout the short book the authors...

I’m waiting at a train station to go back after doing 2 presentations on kanban. It’s super hot, I’m tired and it’s 2 hours to wait before my train, with AC, comes. Perfect time to write a blog post in other words. (I’m also happy, proud and healthy again after my flu - came out a bit pessimistic there for...